From the Bookshelf of YA and Beyond…

Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)

Ernest Cline

Start date: April 1, 2013

Finish date: April 30, 2013

Discussion: MONTHLY BOOK READS

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MONTHLY BOOK READS

* Monthly Book Reads 2017
By *b*l*u*e*m*o*… · 139 posts · 91 views

last updated Nov 04, 2017 07:29AM

* Monthly Book Reads 2016
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last updated Nov 15, 2016 01:30PM

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What Members Thought

Nov 01, 2017 Evelyn Swift (Featherbrained Books) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: young-adult, dystopia-postapocalyptic, science-fiction, 5-star-books, made-into-movie, love-the-hero, great-ending, great-world-building

I rarely do this but....RTC.

The books you love are always the hardest to review! I finished this back in September and just couldn't put together a compelling review. Will come back once I can gather my thoughts. Also, I am hesitantly excited for the movie to come out... ...more

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May 24, 2012 Elle rated it it was amazing

What would the world be like if everybody lived online, every day, all the time? Imagine a world where you could go days, weeks, months (years even) without any physical contact from another person. You could go to work, school, university, on dates, and sometimes marry the love of your life, without ever stepping out of the confines of your own small living square. This is also a world where the majority of people live in abject poverty because earth is abused and overpopulated. The online vers What would the world be like if everybody lived online, every day, all the time? Imagine a world where you could go days, weeks, months (years even) without any physical contact from another person. You could go to work, school, university, on dates, and sometimes marry the love of your life, without ever stepping out of the confines of your own small living square. This is also a world where the majority of people live in abject poverty because earth is abused and overpopulated. The online version of you is better looking, thinner, and probably smells better as well. In a world like this, I’d probably want to live online too.

This tale is set in a futuristic United States, and our hero, Wade Watts, lives in ‘The Stacks’ in Oklahoma City; the stacks are a place where someone had the brilliant idea to stack trailers on top of one another to produce trailer parks on steroids. Wade’s sole objective is to win this contest to have controlling interest (and billions of dollars) in a program called Oasis, which is where the entire world lives and works and goes to school and… pretty much everything is done in the Oasis. The Oasis is free for everyone, but upgrades and hardware and avatar bedazzlement are not. The contest was created by the late creator of the Oasis, who loved classic video games, Dungeons and Dragons, and the 80’s, and pretty much nothing else. So, naturally the contestants must have extensive knowledge and proficiency in these areas. This also means that millions of people in this era pretty much have no life (how the world got over populated and how it remains so is a mystery to me).

Oh yeah, did I mention that there is an evil corporation that will stop at nothing to gain possession of the Oasis? They plan on charging a monthly fee for use of the Oasis, meaning the majority of the world will no longer be able to afford access—and if you can’t afford their services you could become an indentured servant to them (essentially a slave) just to live. They are also not below evil plots like murder and corruption and blackmail. So, it’s pretty obvious why Wade Watts and his band of brothers (and sisters) needs to stop them, by winning this contest.

There were a couple of aspects that didn’t totally add up for me though. For one, there was no mention of tornados. I live in Oklahoma City and tornados are a real threat to life and limb. Even without tornados, the winds alone would be enough to topple over one of these poorly constructed ‘stacks’, which are as high as 22 mobile units. Also, the author mentions that the temperature dropped below zero a couple of nights at the onset of the story. This rarely ever happens in Oklahoma, but I’m willing for forgive this because of unforeseeable climate change in the future. Another aspect of annoyance is that the hero drones on in the first chapter about his atheism—and this contributes NOTHING to the story. If anything, it’s sorely out of place and blatantly obvious that the author is trying to shove his belief system down our throats. Lastly, in the end of the book, the hero spends one day in Ohio, which is cold and the evening in Oregon, which is warm? That doesn’t make sense to me either.

Despite the things about this story that annoyed me, I really enjoyed it. In the first few chapters I considered putting it down permanently because a lot of the writing is dedicated exclusively to back story or tech jargon (which is explained but it’s also easy to forget). I’m so glad I stuck with it. It paid off in a big way.

Reasons to read this:
• It is exciting
• Mostly-original plot—to me anyway
• It is well written—the author does a good job at keeping the story moving forward and injecting the right amount of tension
• You love video games, the 80’s and/or Dungeons and Dragons

Reasons not to read this:
• You are offended by profanity
• You are offended by atheism
• You hate everything technical
• You are offended by video games, the 80’s and/or Dungeons and Dragons

Favorite quote:
“No one in the world gets what they want and that is beautiful”
...more

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Apr 30, 2012 Lynda Engler rated it it was amazing

The first few chapters were a walk down memory road of the 80s and while I WAS enjoying that, I thought the amount of intro was a bit long, but once the action started around chapter 4 or 5, I couldn't put it down. I cheated and read this one as an audio book (I spend a lot of time behind the wheel) and usually I don't walk around the house with headphones on, but I did with this book. Loved it! ...more

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Jan 08, 2014 Phillip Simpson rated it it was amazing

An awesomeness of geekness. I loved it. Rubbed my hands together gleefully every time I read another reference to role playing, computer games, comics etc. etc. which I suspect had been placed in the book especially for me.

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